The High Court has refused to stay an interlocutory employment injunction requiring Over-C Technology Limited and Over-C Limited to continue specified payments to former chief financial officer Donal O’Donovan while they assign duties of that role to him, and for at least six months from the end of January 2020.
In a ruling delivered on 3 July 2020, Mr Justice David Keane said the companies had not identified grounds for a proposed appeal, so he could not be satisfied that it would be arguable. He also found that the balance of convenience weighed decisively against a stay. The evidence that Mr O’Donovan could not meet household and living expenses without the payments was uncontroverted but untested, the judge said.
The ruling dealt with the terms and implementation of an injunction granted in an earlier judgment on 12 June. The order requires the companies to pay the salary, bonus and other contractual benefits due while they wish to assign Mr O’Donovan any CFO duties and, in any event, until the end of July 2020, provided he gives an undertaking to the court to perform those duties. The judge said the order did not require payment of a fixed sum. Any arrears would be due once the undertaking was provided, with future payments due for as long as the relevant duties were assigned or until the end of July, whichever was later.
The companies had argued that the six-month period should run from 7 January, when they purported to terminate Mr O’Donovan’s employment, and noted that they paid him one month’s salary in lieu of notice. The judge rejected that interpretation: the period ran from the end of January, and he had taken the earlier payment into account. He declined to add an express reference to tax deductions, saying the usual legal deductions applied.
The court declined Mr O’Donovan’s request for expedited trial directions, finding no special urgency requiring case management beyond the ordinary court rules. The judge described the underlying claim as being in reality for a fair termination process rather than reinstatement, while confirming that the injunction reinstated him as CFO in effect. It did not require the companies to assign him duties or prevent them from appointing another CFO.
On costs, the judge found that Mr O’Donovan had succeeded in obtaining the employment injunction. Because the contractual issues central to that decision would be considered at trial, he ordered that only Mr O’Donovan’s costs of the injunction application be costs in the cause. The ruling does not determine the final claims, including wrongful dismissal, defamation and misrepresentation.